Beginning of the End
by frankie.herring
Summary: This short story is an A/U Harry Potter piece where Voldemort chooses Harry to become his next of kin. Enjoy!


Rain pattered on the roofs of the sleeping neighborhood. A dark figure shifts in the night, almost invisible to the naked eye. The shadow creeps onto the doorstep of the Potter household. A hand shoots out, holding a wand, and unlocks the door of the home. The storm deafens the sounds of the creaking door. This figure, clad in a black robe, blacker than night itself, makes its way up the stairs and turns left into a hallway.

It slithers down the dark corridor, looking into all the rooms, as if it was trying to find something…or someone. It peers into the first room on the right and sees two people in bed, sound asleep. The room itself is rather plain. There is a dresser on the left side of the room, a closet door right beside it on the far side of the room. The bed is centered in the middle of the right wall, so that the headdress faces the doorway. There is also a little display case in the far right corner of the room, but the contents of the case were not visible. The figure passes the sleeping partners by without even taking a second glance. It approaches the end of the hallway, and then turns sharply right into a smaller room.

This room is full of color, although the night envelopes the vibrant shades of crimson and gold. In the corner, a cradle is set up with a mobile dangling above it. The mobile is moving without any help of a motor or electricity. _Magic._ The figure goes over to the cradle and peers over to find a young boy, sound asleep, unaware of the events that are about to take place. The cloaked being picks up the baby and makes its way back to the door.

Just then, a female walks into the doorway practically running over the cloaked kidnapper. She immediately shrieks and flips on the light. The cloaked figure quickly flies over into a dark corner of the room, shielding its face from the light. _Wait, flew? How did it do that?_ The woman runs back to her room to wake her sleeping counterpart. They both come back, but their baby boy and the kidnapper are nowhere to be found. They run over to the window to see the two running across the pavement. The father, presumably, reaches for his wand and utters a spell, directing it towards the cloaked being. The spell surges through the figure and freezes it in its tracks. The partners run downstairs and out onto their lawn where the frozen kidnapper stands still as a statue.

By now, the being is slowly regaining its mobility, and starts escaping again into the night. The man is out on the lawn, shouts out another spell, but this one pointed towards his boy, and the baby rockets into the air, out of the clutches of the kidnapper. In one quick and agile motion, he catches the kid, drops him down gently onto the wet ground, then starts charging the burglar. In three steps he's onto the cloaked thing and wrestles it to the ground. This was pretty easy because the thing had not fully recovered from the paralysis spell that was cast on him. Just then, a violent green aura shoots out from the wand of the cloaked man and throws the father across the yard, some twenty feet away. The cloaked figure then reaches up to his hood and reveals his face to the world.

The man quickly recovers, stumbling to his feet just to see the thing that tried stealing his baby from him. He knew who it was as soon as he saw the face, but couldn't believe it. " _Voldemort,"_ the man mutters under his breath. The now revealed man throws his head back and cackles into the storm. "Ah, yes, and you must be James, I presume?" Voldemort replies. "Why did you try and take our son away from us?" James questions. By this time the mother of the boy is on the lawn, only to see her son in the grass and her husband talking to the man who tried to steal their son. She whips out her wand, but it is instantly ripped out of her grasp and thrown into the few trees the family had behind their house, out of sight. She looks down at her hand, trying to comprehend what just happened, only to see Voldemort tilt his head back again and utter that same cackle he did just moments before.

"If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead," Voldemort states. "You still haven't answered the question, why do you want our son?"James repeats, this time more forceful. "A prophecy foretold a young boy that would grow up and destroy me, and obviously I don't want that to happen," Voldemort replies with a sneer. "But I wasn't going to kill your poor baby boy, I was going to, let's say, take him off your hands." Again with the sneer. "I was going to raise him as my apprentice, to take over for me if anything were to happen, although I don't see that problem ever arising." Voldemort explains. "You know the saying right? Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer? Well your son is my enemy as of right now, but he won't be for long."

"Why do you say that?" James ponders. "I will treat him well, train him to become as powerful as me, or pretty close at least, and make him my right hand, so that he may rule by my side." "Now why the hell would Lily and I want you to take away our son? I'm sorry, but you are sorely mistaken if you think you were just going to break in and steal him in the night." James states as he takes his stance, wand at the ready. Voldemort swipes his hand in the air, like he was swatting a fly, and James's wand flies out of his hand onto the ground in front of Voldemort's feet.

"You will never win, I am stronger than you in every way," Voldemort retorts. While this is all going on, Lily is holding and comforting the little boy, now crying because of the storm. "Shhh, it'll be alright, Harry" Lilly says trying to calm the boy down. Her voice had that particular tone of a mother; the slow, easy, light tone that all mothers possess. She succeeds in calming the baby down, but only as thunder booms in the distant. The boy starts to cry again and Voldemort smirks and says, "That boy is weak, but if you give him to me I will train him. He will become the most fearless wizard that ever lived." James hurries over to his son and wife to console both of them.

"You will never take him from us." James declares. "Oh, but I will," Voldemort answers, and then with another swish of his wand the infant flies into the air and back into his hands. The mother immediately screams, "NO!" "GIVE US BACK OUR SON!" then charges for him only to be thrown to the ground by another flick of Voldemort's wand. The scream awoke the neighbors, and lights were being flipped on in the homes in the neighborhood. Voldemort realizes this, and almost looks scared. He starts backing away from the parents, into the woods behind the Potter house, trying to steal away into the night with his prize.

But then, a burly neighbor comes out of the back door of the house next to James and Lily's and sees him with the baby. "Hey! What are you doing with that boy?" He cries. Lily is now a complete mess, from the wet, muddy ground as well as the tears streaming down her face. "Help us! Voldemort is kidnapping Harry!" The man then takes out his wand to try and disarm Voldemort, who is almost to the edge of the wood line. Just then Voldemort raises his wand, points it at the man, and shouts out a spell, "Avada kedavra _!"_ A jolt of green light shoots out of his wand, aimed directly at him.

The man is hit with the blast and instantly crumples to the ground. Lily screams. As the man falls to the ground, Voldemort screams, as if he is in excruciating pain. He drops his wand to the ground. He takes the kid in both hands and raises him into the air. A jagged cut was developing on top of the kid's forehead, who is also screaming. _He wasn't dropped or anything, so why is there a gash in his head?_ "So this is how you plan to destroy me then?" Voldemort asks the baby. "By becoming a horcrux, ripping out a piece of my soul and locking it inside yours…" "What did you just say?" James demands. "He has become a part of me; or rather I have become a part of him." Voldemort answers. "His life is forever entwined with mine, as long as we live. There is no getting back your son now." Voldemort continues, "So here's how this is going to work. I am going to take your child from you and you can join me, and become my followers like so many already have, and see your son grow up and become the most powerful wizard of his time, or I can kill you like I did your filthy neighbor; the choice is yours." Voldemort explains.

James runs over to his distraught wife, who is still on the ground pleading to Voldemort to not take her baby from them. "Honey, if we go with him, we get to see our son grow up, just the way we want, but if we don't we will never see him ever again."James explains. Lily looks up into his eyes, seeing pain and defeat, and mutters softly, "Okay."


End file.
